Outside the air is too hot to bear and too thick to breathe, seething with humidity; inside my office I wrap myself in a woolly blanket and avoid touching the ice-cold top of my desk.
Inside the office I have no plants, having killed off the last remaining evidence of my houseplant ineptitude, but outside my window Virginia creeper climbs the wall and thick stands of pokeweed invade a weedy space where groundskeepers can't work right now because of an onslaught of hornets.
Outside groundskeeper cuts dahlia blossoms from the pollinator garden in front of my building, offers me a few to decorate my office; inside, though, I have no vase, nowhere to put the flowers in water, no way to enjoy them without causing damage and droop.
Outside my house a fawn walked past the window this morning all cute and cuddly, but inside I still flinch every time I see a deer alongside the road and even, sometimes, when I don't see a deer beside the road, thanks to lingering trauma from the deer that materialized out of nowhere and wrecked my car.
Outside my head I remain cool and calm, carrying the facade of a competent person with everything under control; inside, though, the gears are constantly turning and everything's heating up in preparation for whatever hornets' nests I'll encounter in and out of classes, committee meetings, and campus controversies.
Someone needs to find a way to bring outside and inside into agreement before these extremes send me climbing the walls.
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